Forever is an Awfully Long Time
by VesperChan
Summary: He was too dark to be her Peter Pan and she was too shrewd to be his Wendy Darling, but somehow they found their way to Neverland together.


He was too dark to be her Peter Pan and she was too shrewd to be his Wendy Darling, but somehow they found their way to Neverland together.

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"Forever is an awfully long time."  
-Wendy Darling, Peter Pan.

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The first time they met she still had the bandages around her head and he was wearing skinny jeans she had seen in a girl's magazine. She was still in a wheelchair while he was in red-and-white-checkered chucks. Her lips seemed to be glued together, never opening, never smiling, never frowning, while he couldn't stop beaming at her.

Why was that?

They were both patents at the same end of the ward, both being treated for unique illnesses, and yet the differences between them were too stark in contrast. She was frail and emotionless while he was jubilant and full of emotions, most being perverted ones when they had to do with her. She though he was a generally bright person, but she was wrong.

He was very dark when he wanted to be.

He was a rich man's son, so he could get away with whatever he wanted. And by 'whatever' that included injuries from being pushed through glass, being hit over the head with a chair, and thrown from a second story floor opening. He didn't normally get so violent, but when he saw another man flirting with his darling, well, that was really all he needed to see to lose it. And lose it he did over every male nurse who saw her beautiful face.

He had made it painfully clear that she was _his_.

When Sakura was having the bandages removed from her head she saw herself in the mirror and cried at what she had become. Her lovely curled hair was gone, shaved off for the surgery and donated to Locks of Love. Madara came to see her when he heard from the nurse and told her she could have his hair. Even though it was short, to his shoulders, he wouldn't cut it because it belonged to her from then on.

She was reading Wuthering Heights again when he burst into her room like a train wreck. And just like a train wreck, she couldn't look away even though she knew it was going to be bad. He picked her up and carried her outside to show her this exciting new thing he had discovered. He made her hold the wand while he blew into it and pushed bubbles into formation. After a while he even got her to blow a few while he happily chased them.

"I've never done this before!"

Neither had she.

His eyes were good and healed, putting him in perfect health with no sign of the Uchiha cornea disease resurfacing just when Sakura's hair got long enough to wash with shampoo. He turned the whole place upside down in a panic as he looked for anything that could do him physical damage. He was desperate in his actions, and everyone knew why.

He didn't want to lose her.

After the ordeal he woke up to an angel braiding his hair and humming to himself, so he thought he'd gone too far and sailed off to heaven. But no, it's just Sakura, worried for **_her_** hair as she calmly explained. She took his hand and put it on her head and told him to feel the bumps that would soon be long and luscious pink curls.

"You look cute just the way you are, Sakura."

She looked down at him from her seat for a long while and then her face cracked out of its mold. There is a lift at the corner of her lips and Madara knew that's the start he needed.

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The two of them build a spaceship outside in the garden where no one can see them out of boxes they snuck from the new deliveries. Sakura doesn't want anyone to see her acting so childish, but Madara tells her it's okay, since she's slept through all her childhood she deserves to have one now. She doesn't say anything to that, but tells him that he is now Major Tom and she is Ship's caption. He doesn't understand the reasoning behind the name Major Tom, so she lets him listen to one of her favorite songs.

Major Tom (Coming Home), a remake by the Shiny Toy Guns.

For a few months it looked like she was doing better, but her health eventually pulled a 180 on her and sent her back to her bed.

She collapses again, and is restricted to her bed. No more safaris, space voyages, or deep sea adventures for her because she's too weak for that. So she falls asleep like she used to when she was so alone and when she wakes up, half her room is painted with narwhales, tigers and shooting stars. Madara looks up from the wings on a dragon he had been painting and blushes. There is paint on his face and his shirt is badly stained. If she couldn't go out for an adventure he would bring the adventure to her.

"I had wanted to finish before you woke up."

One of the nurses has a swollen belly and tells the pair that she will have to stay home for a few months to have her baby. Madara notices Sakura is sad (though she denies this) and realizes that she'll probably die before she can have her own family. She's only sixteen but her tumor is growing with her, so it's common knowledge that it's only a matter of time before she dies. If only they could stay young forever and never have to leave their youth.

"But dying would be an awfully big adventure, wouldn't it?"

"To live would be an awfully big adventure."

"I know."

He tells her he won't be far behind when she becomes an angel with wings and starts to cry into her lap. The reality of everything is hitting home for the seventeen year old and he hates it. He doesn't want their days to end. He doesn't want to grow up. He wants to fly away with her to Neverland and he wants to stay with her there forever and ever and ever amen.

"But we're not really children are we? We're too old for Neverland."

"I'll still find it for you, Sakura."

She just shakes her head and smiles to herself with sorrowful eyes, not because she's dying, (no, she'd resigned herself to that fate a long time ago), but because she is hurting someone. Every time she is healthy enough to go to church she stays a extra half hour to pray for those she's leaving behind.

"Especially Madara, he needs it the most, God."

She's not allowed to walk on her own a lot, so he buys her one of those overpriced television sets and a bunch of pillows for her bed so they can watch their favorite movies together. She likes the old classics like Peter Pan and he brings for her new classics like Pan's Labyrinth. When the movie is over, neither of them say anything and Madara is afraid he has upset her, because there are tears on her face. But she's not sad, even if the little girl at the end really did die in the real world, because she has a much better life waiting for her after death.

"When I die I want to be like that. I want to be a princess in the King's court."

"Can't you a princess here? I could be your prince."

Her smile breaks his heart. "I know you would."

He can't stand it when she talks like that so easily, so he leaves for a little while. He can't be away from her for a long time, after all. When he comes back she is asleep; he lets himself cry a few tears for the perfection he can't stand to give up. He doesn't want things to change, never ever, ever!

He thinks that perhaps God has answered the only prayers he offers up when she gets better. She's well enough to go outside with him and so the two of them play pirates, him being Captain Hook and her being Peter Pan. He would like to say he let her win, and he does when she is not listening, but she's Peter Pan after all, so of course she's stronger and faster and braver. The huge hat he ordered online for the role-play doesn't seem to help him very much, since Sakura just swiped it off with her cardboard sword and poked him in the chest.

"I got you."

"Not fair, my sword is loppy."

"Loppy isn't a word."

"Yeah it is, you know it's the cross of floppy and loopy."

Sakura laughs because she don't know what loopy has to do with cardboard swords and Captain Hook. All the same, they team up (like they should have in the movies) and go out in search of treasure. At the end Peter Pan double-crosses her rival and takes the treasure for herself, leaving him to the crocodile.

They take a magic carpet ride over the desert and visit the pyramids of Egypt, looking for mummies. They travel to ancient Athens and duel with the gods over thunder bolts and golden apples. They become Samurai to defend the emperor from invading forces and save the world all before dinner time. They were planning on inviting Sherlock Holmes over for turkey before heading out into the night in search of murders and truth.

Madara's hair is so much longer now, and so is Sakura's. His reaches down to the middle of his back in loose and uneven strands while hers curl around her ears and almost kiss her shoulders.

"Pretty soon I'll be able to braid it!"

There is surprise for Sakura the next day, and one for Madara as well. Outside were several cages filled with butterflies. There was red string on each door that he had woven together to make one long strand. He gave it to Sakura and told her to pull it. She did as he told her and once the doors were opened a rainbow of colored wings and ornate patterns burst forth, reaching for the sky. Sakura turns to watch them as the swarm around her on their way up. She glances towards the sky where they are still flying and falls backwards, her eyes closed and her skin an unhealthy ashen color.

They have to shave her head again and she goes into operation while Madara waits outside and bawls like a child. He wishes he could just be a child , but that can't happen. He's just a human and as a human there are limitations. He can't take her away to Neverland even if such a place existed.

"God, I'll do whatever it is you want me to be, I'll be as perfect as I can be, I'll give You the rest of my life, but please just leave Sakura and me together. I want to stay with her forever."

Ten hours is a long time, and he has since then fallen asleep and doesn't notice when the doctors file out, one by one. The one with the most authority talks to a nurse and she says she understands. She is the one to rouse the young boy and tell him that Sakura survived, if only to go into a coma. Even so, it's probably only days before she stops breathing thanks to the tumor. She's already eighteen, after all. Hearing this, he cries some more.

The next day, Sakura is gone from her bed and Madara is gone from his room. Everyone everywhere searches like mad for the pair and the whole town of Jackpot Nevada is overturned in an effort to find these two in the mountainous region. After a week there still isn't a single trace of either of them. Not even the security cameras caught them leaving the building, and there were cameras everywhere. It was like they just vanished into thin air with the aid of a little pixy dust.

"Maybe God really did take them away to their Neverland?" muses the same nurse.

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Because he became her bright and shining Peter Pan and she became his innocent and open Wendy Darling, and in the end they found for themselves Neverland.

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_Written by Vesper chan  
Beta edited by BrittMarie_

AN;/ I don't know how the hell this happened, really. I normally hate stories like this and Madara is not the type of guy to act like that, but it just happened on it's own, I swear. I almost feel bad about writing this because I'm not sure that the person I'm writing this for will like it. T_his is the 2ed place prize for the title Sway by ShelbySabaku during my Sakura December oneshot challenge._

I just really like Peter Pan and the whole 'I don't want to grow up' feel to it all. I'm such a child deep down and despite a lot of what I write, I'm still so childish and young-mentally. Maybe it's because those days were too precious not to want back? I don't know why, I just know that I wish I were a kid again.

**_Please Review! Please, pretty please!_**

**_(Happy St. Valentines day, or SAD: Singles Awareness Day.)_**


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